Despite the fact that he is not vegan, I love Peter Berley’s cookbook, The Modern Vegetarian Kitchen. Almost every recipe is vegan or is easily veganizable and I have never made anything bad out of this book. And up until now, I’d never had any problems with his recipes. This one had one major typo in the first paragraph causing us to wing it. If anyone wants the recipe for this let me know and I’ll add it. I normally do not put recipes in here that are published in books, but since this one has a major mind-boggling typo in it, I’d be happy to provide a recipe that can be followed.

The weather here has turned towards wintryness, and soup sounded like the best thing ever. Since I had about 4 lbs of CSA potatoes to get through, soup sounded especially perfect.

I made my own stock from carrots, mushrooms, parsnips, onions, garlic, celery, thyme, and bay leaves (recipe is also in the book). The stock simmered for about an hour.

The stock was then strained off and set aside. Then I sweated onions, a whole head of peeled garlic cloves, and 2 shallots in 4 Tbsp olive oil:

After the onions we soft (about 10 minutes on medium), I added the stock back and simmered for 45 minutes:

Near the end of the simmer time, I cooked a pound of sliced cremini mushrooms in 2 Tbsp olive oil on high heat for about 8 minutes:

The mushrooms we deglazed with mirin and water and then added to the soup pot. At this point, a head of broccoli and peeled stalks went into the pot along with 1 tsp ground carraway seed, one pound diced potatoes, and thyme:

This cooked for about 30-40 minutes until the potatoes were soft. I removed the thyme and used an immersion blender to puree the soup: